


Dangerous thing

by Code16



Category: Original Work
Genre: Beating, Chemical Torture, Confinement, Enslaved Mages, Fantasy oppression, Historical Fantasy, Honorifics, Magic, Original Universe, Other, POV First Person, Partial Mind Control, Slavery, Torture, Unfinished, Verbal Abuse, WIP, Whipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:48:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have anything to do with the mage-slaves."</p><p>("No, the trouble is that sometimes – not often, but there are those times – they look too much like people.")</p><p>[See last chapter for recaps]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: this is not really historical fantasy in the sense that it does not use a version of a particular era, but it takes place in a world with magical elements and without modern technology and does not use the trope-set I would associate with a general fantasy tag, so this was the best tag I could think of.

Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have anything to do with the mage-slaves. That’s normal, of course – as First Citizen Lave has said, who can be comfortable thinking that if it wasn’t for our effort and our Law, they would be making us fall at their feet like the mages of the marble towers of the East. But if I’m to be honest (and I think I should be honest inside my own mind first of all) then I have to say that that isn’t the why of it for me.

I have no fear of the mage-slaves. I know the Helas, their appointed guards, have them well in hand. A rogue one couldn’t raise half a magic sign against me or anyone before they’d take it down. No, the trouble is that sometimes – not often, but there are those times – they look too much like people. The way they flinch when they take a blow, and then the fear after that, because some of the Helas don’t like them flinching. The blood on the stones after they beat one in the street – sometimes, it looks too much like human blood. (I’m too tenderhearted, my cousin says, thinking like that. I’m falling for their tricks. And maybe I am, but then, such I am, and so be it. I have no doubt in the Law – it is both just and right. But I may have the choice of what I wish to see).

Except of course, sometimes, I don’t have the choice. This day, when I’m the forecitizen of the field-guard wall, and the defenses need upkeep, a mage-slave to work the signs is a necessity, and being the one to fetch it is my duty. This evening, I take the street that runs past their compound, and show my tag to the Helas so that they show me to the coordinator, sit in her office to fill out the papers that’ll get a mage-slave sent out to us in the morning. After, she looks through it and then through more papers on her desk.

“So, this is just refreshing?”

“Yeah,” I tell her (if there’s one good things about the Helas it’s that they never stand on formality. Get enough of that from the mage-slaves, I figure). “Yearly Season’s upkeep, is all. Check it all out, strengthen up the stone in a few places.”

“Alright. First class should be enough for that, even working all day. We’ll have that for you. Send it right out – you begin at the first working bell, right?” I nod. “Excellent, no trouble at all. You be there, it’ll be there. That all for you?” I nod again. “Evening to you then.” And she calls another of the Helas back to show me out again. It’s walking with him that I get my evening’s only glimpse of the compound’s real occupants. Down a parallel hall to us, two more Helas drag him between them. I only get a moment’s look, but it’s enough to tell that his back is bloody, and the Helas are all that’s keeping him from the stone floor. For a second, I feel that heart my cousin warned about.  _It’s deserved prophylactic_ , I think against it.  _It’s justice for what their kin do against ours._

Beside me, the Helaon snorts a laugh. “Count of the day, the piece of filth. Good thing mages heal.” And looking at it ( _look at him_ , my cousin would say.  _He knows those things for what they are_ ) I can return his expression with barely any trouble.

“Yeah, good thing.”


	2. Chapter 2

I head out to work a bit early the next morning. Normally, my duties are about administrating the wall guards’ schedules, processing the gate guards’ records, and occasionally doing surprise inspections. This day, I’ll be walking the wall with whatever mage-slave the Helas send us, and whatever of the Helas accompanies it. Heading out early means I arrive before the changing of the guard, enough time to post a notice for the new shift, informing them about the spell renewal, and requesting that anyone wishing to indulge their citizen’s right restrain themselves to the level that won’t interfere with work. (By the Law, it is every citizen’s right to strike at a mage-slave, so that we never doubt that we are safe from their machinations. I have no doubt in the Law, but I even a mage-slave cannot work as well with broken bones, and the work needs to be done.)

I write and put up the notice, finishing just as the first of the new shift of guards begins to head through to change the old. I leave the logbook for them, and head outside to wait for the cage cart.

I don’t have long to wait. It comes up the road before long, the cage in the middle and the benches for the Helas around. It stops by the guard booth, and one of the Helas jumps down, poking the handle of her lash through the bars – “the rest of you filth, stay back!” before unlocking the cage to pull out one of its occupants. She relocks it after, and the cart heads out again – to the fields probably, fertility signs and signs against pests – while she drags our allotted mage-slave over.

“Forecitizen Genea?”

“Here, Helani.” I lead her inside the guardsbooth so we can sign off on each other’s papers. The mage-slave follows, hesitant and staring at the Helani’s boots as though they were her lifeline. I can tell already that this one’s going to be the cowering sort, and clench my teeth. I hate watching those.

“Does she know what she’s going to be doing?” I ask when the papers are done with. The Helani grins at me.

“It does.”

“Right. We’re waiting here until everyone’s gone through, so if she needs to do any prep spells, now’s the time.” The mage-slave is still staring at the ground, and she stumbles when the Helani hits her.

“Answer the forecitizen when she wants something from you!” The mage-slave flinches.

“I’m sorry, General. Yes, Sovereign, I – I do need to.”

“Can you do them in here?”

“Yes, Sovereign. May I use your floor, Sovereign?”

“Go ahead.” She drops to the floor, tracing signs and then pressing her palms against them, mouthing silent words. The Helani watches her with unwavering intensity. In spite of myself I realize that the mage-slave is tense, as close to curled into a ball as she can get while working, and that she’s shaking ever so slightly. After a moment, I realize she’s probably waiting for me to take my right and hit her. Her hair, cut at her chin, is the same color as my cousin’s, the bruise on her arm like the one I got when I was a child and we fled from the Beasts approaching our home to the safety of the walled town and my mother gripped my arm so tight it hurt. If I wanted to, I could hit her, could kick her until she vomited blood, and the Helani would laugh and say that it’s a good thing mages heal.  _And this is justice, and this is deserved, and they only look like people, and they are parasites and would enslave us if they could._

I cross the room, pull out the latest gate logbook almost blindly, and start flipping through the numbers, trying to pretend that I’m alone in the room.

* * *

When the guards of the shift have all gone through, stopping to sign the logbook and read the notice, some of them looking through the window at the Helani and then down to the mage-slave, I give final instructions.

“Keep track of how far we get along the wall from here. Anytime there’s a place that needs repair, I’ll need to know that.

“Yes, Sovereign.”

“Come on.” She gets up from the floor – she’d stayed there even after she was done with her spells – and we head out to walk the wall. The mage-slave sets the pace, going hand over hand along the stone, crouching and reaching up to touch more of it, stopping with her palms pressed to it for minutes at a time. The Helani continues to watch her intensely. I, to be truthful again, do not, so it takes me longer than a few moments to notice the first time she turns away from the wall, bows, and stays that way. It’s the sign that she has something to say to me, but since I’m not talking to her already, needs me to permit her to speak. I want to roll my eyes. Sometimes, the formality of this is plain annoying.

“What do you need?”

“This is a place that needs strengthening, Sovereign.” Her voice is shaking again, like she thinks I’ll hit her for not being noticeable enough. Which I could. I set my teeth again.

“Right. What’s the figures?” She tells them to me and I record them, then she turns back again to start doing the spells.

The next time happens much too soon. We’re still in the same guard’s stretch. And then the time after that, again. It could be chance, I tell myself, but I know how poor my predecessor’s reports were. That a need for immediate inspection after an attack could have been ignored in the disorganization is infuriatingly, chillingly likely. I look at the mage-slave.

“What’s the damage like here?” She can hear the anger in my voice, I think, though I’m better at hiding the fear. She stutters out something that sounds like it’s about magic – it could just as well be in Kashyaran for all the words I understand, and I’m about to rephrase the question when the Helani backhands her into the wall.

“You’re here to work, not to show off, you stupid piece of trash. Keep your fancy words to yourself and give the forecitizen a straight answer.”

“I’m sorry, General.” Her voice shakes even more, and when she turns to me it’s in abject terror. I’m faster on the uptake, this time – she doesn’t know what I want, and she’s equally terrified of asking and of a wrong answer.

“Is the damage from natural breakdown, or was it caused by an outside force?” I ask before she can say anything. She closes her eyes – I don’t know if it’s for calm, or if she’s remembering the magic patterns.

“Outside force, Sovereign.” And she’s not the only one who needs help staying calm – I breathe so I don’t start cursing out loud.

“What about the first two?”

“Also outside force, Sovereign.” The chill that I felt before has goes pure ice, the anger strong enough that I want my predecessor back among the living so that I can kill him, but before I can do or say anything, the Helani grabs the mage-slave by the hair and throws her into the wall again.

“Oh, you treacherous vermin.” The mage-slave stumbles, falls, raises her hands over her head. The Helani unhooks her lash from her belt and brings it down in the same movement. “You think you can  _lie_  to us? You think you can  _hide_  things from us?” She punctuates her words with the lash again, and the mage-slave cowers against the wall.

“No, no, please I wasn’t. I – I didn’t know, no one said, it just said numbers, it-“

“Hiding how bad the damage is so we’ll all be slaughtered by the Beasts-“ The lash has broken skin. There’s blood on the falls and on the mage-slave’s arm and tunic. The mage-slave screams and begs again.

“No, no, I didn’t, it wasn’t, I-“

“Wait.” The Helani pauses when I speak up, the mage-slave falls silent except for sobbing. I look at her again. “What did you say about the damage level?”

“It- it wasn’t any worse than breakdown damage, Sovereign. I-I said the number for that. It’s just different because it’s from outside, but it’s not worse, and I fixed it, I swear I did, I-“

“Shut up,” orders the Helani and the mage-slave is silent again. I look at my logbook, think a moment, then look at the Helani again.

“I need to go back to the guardsbooth to look at last year’s records. We can continue when I come back.” The Helani nods.

“No problem.” She looks back to the mage-slave and smiles. “And I’ll take the time while you’re gone to teach this  _filth_  a lesson on her place.” My stupid heart is at it again, but even if I wished to there would be nothing I could do. I grip my logbook until my fingers turn white and walk away, reminding myself yet again about protection and justice, and trying not to react in any way as I hear the lash swinging again.

* * *

Lack of learning is an odd thing to be grateful for, but just now I’m glad as anything that my (idiot of a) predecessor never learned his letters and had a writer to do his records for him. It means that these, at least, are well done, heavy-bound books lined up in order on the shelf where they belong. I’m also glad that I learned mine – the delay while a writer could be called, now, might have driven me mad. As it is, I search the labels for the rights books, and immerse myself.

When I emerge, I’m more grateful still, and calmer – the overtone of nausea is gone, and without it my anger is dying down, dull effectless fury at the stupid and the gone. There have been no close attacks since the last upkeep – all intercepted, just the edges of scattering magic left to hit the wall. Negligent, sickeningly so, to not have it repaired right then – but not inviting a massacre, no reality to the pictures that had been blooming in my head of the Beasts breaking through the weakened wall, charging though the town, burned houses and burned flesh and piles of corpses. I breathe, and return the books to their places, and head back to the wall.

My mind not in such disarray on the return trip, I have time to think. The sky is clear, the early spring sun beats on the stone and dirt. If I climbed the wall, if I could see as far forward as I can up to the clouds, I’d see the river that splits its journey, the point where the land divides into three. Tsher to the East, the marble towers and their mages. From our patrol path on the water’s other side, we’d seen one, pointing into the sky, and the dark blur that’s a village next to it. (Wooden fences, our patrol leader, veteran of a half-dozen such trips, told us- only the mages are allowed stone.

“Penned up like cattle. That’s all we are to them, cattle.” I remember turning back to look at the blur again as we rode away). Kashyar to the north and west, where rumors say all are citizens alike, but anyone who wishes to check the rumors for truth will pay with their life if they don’t turn back fast enough – Kashyar’s folks guard their border as thoroughly as if they think Beasts can disguise themselves as human flesh, to trick their way through. We thought we saw a town through the river’s dawn fog, strange shapes that might be foreign roofs against the sky, but didn’t linger to risk their crossbows in the daylight.

I shield my eyes against the sun, as though that’ll help me see over the wall. I wonder who walks their walls.

* * *

When I return to our place, the mage-slave is still curled against the stone, her injuries (I try not to look, but my mind is too well trained, has counted and assessed them before I can even try to avert my eyes) healing already.

“Right, trash, back to work,” snaps the Helani at her when I report what I found, and she jumps up.

“Yes, General. I’m – I’m so sorry for my failing, Sovereign. It won’t happen again.” The Helani has her hand on the lash’s handle again – the mage-slave keeps glancing sideways at it from where her eyes are fixed on the ground. The ‘or else’ could not be more obvious if she’d shouted it.

The mage-slave puts her hands on the wall again, and we go on.

 

There’s yet another outside-damaged area before we finally get to the first guardpost and climb the steps up onto the wall. The carved design set into the floor is there, the anchor for the magic for this section of the wall, and the mage-slave drops to her knees next to it, tracing its grooves with odd finger-motions. The guard is also there. We greet each other, casual-hierarchical, and he nods to the Helani, keeps looking out into the fields while the mage-slave works. When she’s done, she stands and doesn’t move, shivering again – I think she’s trying not to close her eyes. When he swings the shaft of his spear at her, she doubles over, and he swings again to sweep her feet out from under her. She hits the stone, unable to catch herself in time. Or not permitted, maybe. The Helani laughs – “good one!” – then nudges the mage-slave with a boot.

“Get up, filth, there’s work to be done.”

We go on.

 

It’s the same thing again after that - stretches of wall, stairs to the anchor, guards. I’ve been at my post long enough to know them – this one, who walks off some dozen paces to throw a rock, instead of hitting (the Helani complements his aim), I heard telling a shift-change about his family’s newborn daughter. This one, who grinds a booted foot against the mage-slave’s leg hard enough to leave marks, tells me the weather for the day each time she sees me. She’s right a lot. By the time we stop for midday – the Helani and I brought ours, and the Helani throws the mage-slave something like a piece of bread – there are no traces of the lash left, and bruises dapple the mage-slave’s skin everywhere I can see it. She eats curled against the wall again, not looking up from her hands. We go on.

* * *

About an hour after midday, I start to notice that we’re going slower. The mage-slave moves slower along the wall, takes longer to finish each time she stops. The Helani – who can’t not have noticed this, if I did – is ignoring it, so I do too; the last thing I want is for her to decide to ‘reassure’ me with another beating. But the longer we go on, the more obvious it gets. By the time another half hour’s passed, the mage-slave is moving like the wall is half of what’s holding her up. When she stops to give me numbers, then turns to do the spells, she works like dragging a rock up a mountain – bracing against it, putting every ounce of strength into it, stopping to breathe and readjust and see that the rope has burned your hands.

The next time it’s like that again, except that in the middle, she stops, turns and bows her head again.

“Yes?” I say, and see she’s shaking, not like fear, but like she’s almost falling over.

“G-general.” Her voice is like something from a depth.

“Hmm?”

“Here.” The Helani sighs.

“My apologies, forecitizen Genea, this workspan is going to have to be terminated early.” I’m not quite sure how to react to this. The mage-slave is giving every sign of being exhausted, and while I’m surprised that the Helani cares, I’d be glad enough not to have to climb to yet another guard. But the wall needs reinforcement, for all of our sakes, and supervising it is my duty.

“Is there a problem?” I ask in the end. The Helani shrugs.

“Unforseen demands on any tool can dull it. What with the unexpected damage issues, first class’s not enough for this. You want good work, you need your tools in decent condition. My apologies for the trouble – if you want to try it, I’d suggest you go back to the compound, see if they have anyone. I’ll be taking this one back on foot, but there’s no need for you to get slowed down like that.” Out of the corner of my eyes, I see the mage-slave flinch. _On foot_. Leading her through the streets, far from empty at this time of day, no cage cart between her and the citizens. I try not to think about it.

“I understand. Thank you, Helani.” We sign each other’s papers again, exchange final pleasantries, then the Helani strides over to the mage-slave (she’s leaned against the wall, staring into nothing), grabs her by the tunic.

“Move it trash. Long way to go”. I watch them leave, the Helani shoving the mage-slave forward when she stumbles.

_The wall needs strengthening_ , I tell myself again.  _For all our sakes_. I head for the street.


	3. Chapter 3

“See if the 23 from this morning’s learned anything.” The coordinator (same office as yesterday, different person in the chair) hears me out, making her notes in the Helas shorthand so I couldn’t have read it even not upside down, and searches through another stack of papers before calling in one of the others. “This time of day, we don’t really have anything here,” she explains when I look between the two of them in not-quite-comprehension. “Definitely nothing higher level. But this one got sent back here before midday – mouthing off, the gutterkite. If it’s changed its tune by now, it should do quite well for you – third class.” In other words, the mage had said something they hadn’t liked, and paid for it with some three hours of torture. Three hours that probably would have been the rest of the day, had I not come in.

“Ah, I see. Thank you.” I follow the Helaon out, trying not to think –  _so if a beating hour is the punishment for existing, what’s the punishment for this?_

 

As it turns out, I don’t have to think, because the Helaon takes me right to it. It’s a room, metal floor (blood iron, I think, to contain a mage’s power) pierced intermittently by squares of grating. Evenly spaced squares, maybe slightly more long and wide than my shoulders, and it’s only when the Helaon walks up to one and calls down that I realize what they actually are.

“You, gutterkite – ready to get back to work?” I edge nearer to one of the squares, look down through the bars. It’s deep, too dark for me to guess how far down it goes, but I get the idea. Into the one the Helaon is yelling to, a rope runs from a trough along the wall. I walk closer and see water running down it, drop by drop.  _Salt water._  The same that every child knows about blood iron, two parts brought together in magic that doesn’t come from a mage to make a metal that’s a wall to power as well as body, we all know salt water – as good as fire if you need to burn them, better sometimes because no damage and just pain. Like here. Meanwhile, the Helaon raps his foot against the grate and calls again. “I said, are you ready to get back to work?”

“Anything you need me for, General.” I hear the voice, echoing slightly as it comes out of the hole, and nearly stumble back a step. It doesn’t sound at all like a mage-slave’s voice. Not shuddering, not dead like some of them sound, not even pain. Just a drawl, words stretched out like she’s got nothing better to do, like she’s leaning back in a hammock somewhere and not in a living coffin. I look at the Helaon. ‘Mouthing off’, is this what they meant, then? Didn’t cower enough, so they’d shut her in here till she started. Except she hadn’t, and my mind’s on overdrive trying to think of a way to excuse myself, because whatever the next stage of punishment is, I don’t want to watch.

But to my second shock in less than a few seconds, the Helaon doesn’t even seem annoyed. Seems pleased, in fact, points down at the grate and grins at me.

“Well, there you go. All better. Sometimes simple is the best, yeah?” I nod mutely, watching as he drags some metal thing across the ceiling with another rope, opens the grate, and throws it down. “Get up here, there’s a forecitizen here for you.”

“Forecitizen? Oh, goody, those are simply the best. And look, a rope so much nicer than the other rope, too. I’m simply overwhelmed with gratitude.” I stare at the Helaon again. Just imagining the mage-slave from this morning talking like that makes me wince, the sound of the lash and the Helani’s hand against flesh echoing in my head. But he’s standing there like he didn’t even hear it, like I haven’t seen his comrades beating mages into the ground for forgetting to say ‘General’, like the coordinator didn’t just casually mention ‘mouthing off’ as a crime worthy of – this. On the second rope, two hands appear above the edge of the floor, and in another few moments, the promised third-class mage-slave scrambles up onto the edge, and stands, rope wrapped loosely around her.

She looks as young as the first one, which means nothing – could be any age between six and sixty. She has the same haircut with darker hair, the same undyed-blue tunic. And she looks, in any and every way, absolutely nothing like her. Mostly, it’s the way she stands – not cowering, not looking down, leaning on one leg like she’s got all day to wait and is anticipating being a bit bored (her feet are blistered almost to the ankles, but if it bothers her she gives no indication).

“So,” she grins at me, and to have so direct a look from that uniform and that haircut disconcerts me more than the smile. “You the forecitizen, then? I suppose you’re better looking than this one here, at least.” She jerks her head at the Helaon, who’s still standing there, calm as though they’re speaking some shared language where these words and tone mean ‘yes, Sovereign’, and I’m getting close to concluding I’m suffering hallucinations when the mage-slave’s expression suddenly changes, not smiling anymore, but maybe perturbed. “Oh. Well, that’s going to be inconvenient. Excuse us for a moment, General.” She waves a hand at him, and I’m about to try to say something (say what? To him? To her?) when the world freezes.

 

It feels like being underwater. Everything quiet suddenly, and slow, my thoughts feeling both oddly clear and not quite all there, far apart like mountain peaks, deceiving the eyes with a day’s journey looking like barely a handspan. My body is still without effort, the Helaon and the room’s guard, somewhere on the edge of my vision, frozen like in ice. Only the mage-slave moves normally, but her words, no longer drawling, feel like there’s echo somewhere in the undercurrent.

“It’s not important.” She’s looking at me, earnest and serious. “You’re unusually perceptive, so you’re hearing me say these things that no one else is noticing, and you’re been taught that any step out of line from an mage-slave is an alert. But it’s not like that, not now. I’m not going to hurt anyone. I do all my work, I’m not stirring up trouble – I just like to have a bit of fun. It doesn’t mean anything. Just forget about it. You’ll hear it, but it’s not important, so just forget about it. Just for now, just for a little – I’ll come by later to do the rest. But just – let it pass right by you. I say my words, and it doesn’t mean anything. It’s harmless, and it’s not important, and there’s no need for you to pay attention. Just let it pass by you. Just forget about it. Forget I told you this, forget it was odd. I’m just a mage-slave, I’m here to do what you need. That’s all that matters. The rest doesn’t matter. You can just ignore it. You can just forget it. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah.” My own voice feels odd too, like I’m hearing it from far away. The mage-slave smiles again, and that echoes too, sunshine off the water.

“Good. Then we can go back.” When I was a child, we’d sometimes fill sirth-podules with water, and throw them against trees to watch the spray. The silence breaks.

 

Water. Rope. Coffin room. Grate. Like I’d walked into bright sunshine instead of still standing in a stone room, I suddenly want to rub my eyes. I blink against it, feeling oddly like I’ve missed something - like step in the dark, abruptly off balance. But no, here’s the room, and the Helaon, and the new mage-slave they’re sending out with me.  _So, more of that. Right._  Well, that’s enough to make me feel any number of things.

“Forectizen, are you alright?” The Helaon’s right next to me, and I didn’t notice. How did I not notice? I shake my head again, hard, trying to clear it.

“Yes, fine. I’m sorry – are we ready to go?”

“We are. Just need to let the head know, and send for the cage cart.”  _Well, at least we’re not going on foot._

“Good.” And because he’s still looking at me like he wants to ask if I’m alright again – “It was just a moment – patrol days are still close sometimes. They’re right when they say it’s a bad omen to battle by a well.” I nod at the winch, which looks nothing like that well had but he’s no way to know that. When he relaxes – as much as Helas ever do – I know it worked. As he leaves us to the guard inside the room – to go call the coordinator and the cart, I presume - I try not to look at the mage-slave. Back to the wall. Back to the guards.  _For all our sakes._

“Observant, and you think on your feet. I like that.” Someone’s saying something, I think, but I don’t listen either. It’s not important.


	4. Non-following chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: this chapter does not immediately follow the previous chapters and is here out of order. There's content that goes in between them and it, but I have not currently written/finished that content, and I didn't want to leave this story here without giving its other main character a more proper introduction. So.
> 
> Things that have happened in between: Genea, the Helaon, and the new mage-slave finish walking the wall. That night when Genea is at home, the mage-slave shows up at her door, puts her under the afore-described mental state again, and finishes the work of making sure Genea won't notice or remember the various suspicious things she does. During this interaction Genea asks the mage-slave some questions and also finds out the mage-slave's name is Aye. 
> 
> Some time passes during which Genea goes about her regular life. 
> 
> On this particular day, some mage-slaves were at the wall again, including Aye (though in accordance with Aye's work, Genea did not notice this). That evening when she comes home she is basically immediately hit by being put under again.

It feels like being underwater. Everything quiet suddenly, and slow, my thoughts feeling both oddly clear and not quite all there, far apart like mountain peaks, deceiving the eyes with a day’s journey looking like barely a handspan. My body is still without effort…

I’m getting better at this, something far into the distance of me registers, a bird in the clear sky. Memories bloom into place, soundlessly behind me. The mage-slave is sitting at my table again.

“What do you want from me?” Her words echo in me when they snap, like a rock thrown in a cave. My bubbles with maybe the same words scatter, and I stare at her, empty air and no connections.

“I don’t understand.” She’s more there than there, every line of her outlined in coal. Lantern after darkness, it stays in my eyes as she pauses, turns her head away and back.

“Forecitizen Genea. Can you swear on your honor as a guard of this city that if I let you go right now, you won’t immediately call the Helas on me?” Her voice rings in my head, almost hurts, but this isn’t a bubble, it’s the root of the mountain.

“No, of course I won’t.” My voice is syrup in the water, floating slowly up. She nods. She draws a circle with her hand. She snaps her fingers.

           

I drop back into myself. Aye is still sitting at my table, a light that isn’t fire beside her. She – _wait._ I shouldn’t be thinking this, something tells me, except if I wasn’t thinking this I wouldn’t have heard it either. I know what I shouldn’t know I shouldn’t know, and I know that I didn’t know it. Except I do know it. I put my hand to my head and grimace.

“Sorry about that. I should probably have done that not so fast. To summarize your mind catching up with yourself, I put you in suspension a few times to talk to you, and then the rest of the time you ignored me. Because I said so. That’s a terrible summary.” It is a terrible summary, but things are falling into place now, memories and feelings and being actually able to think about this now and – and there’s a mage-slave with a name sitting in my room, who does things I’ve never heard one of them doing, and who just made me promise not to call the guard.

“Excuse me, what is going on?” Maybe this is it, part of me thinks, they managed to hide it from us after us and now they’re ready to take over. I consider reaching for my sword, then tell myself she’d strike me down before I could get to it. I try not to think that I’m not quite sure if I’d want to draw it anyway. Maybe it’s better this way. Revenge for revenge. Revenge for prophylactic.

 

But she doesn’t – doesn’t throw fire or turn me to stone or whatever it is they say mages would do if we didn’t stop them. She stares at me from my table and repeats the question I now remember she asked before.

"What do you want with me?” Unfortunately, not being ‘suspended’ or whatever she called it hasn’t brought any clarity to this.

“I don’t know what you mean.” _Please don’t kill me_ , part of me wants to ask. Of worse, _if you don’t kill me, I can help you._ A traitor to the city, and a coward – is this what being about to die will tell me? Aye glares at me, but still only that.

"I told you to ignore me. I told you to forget about me. As you may have noticed, I am quite talented. It worked. You forgot. But you still can’t let it go. You stare at me in the cage cart, you were doing it again on the wall. That means that part of you you don’t know about wants something from me. It doesn’t think I’m dangerous, or nothing would have worked and you would have told the Helas by now. So it’s something else. What is it?” The cage cart, the wall – it all snaps together in my memory when she says it.

“You’re right. I was starting at you. I didn’t even notice.” I blurt it out before I even realize, my head apparently not quite clear yet from whatever she did to it. She half-smiles.

“You wouldn’t. I did. Why were you doing it?” I shake my head to try to clear it.

“I don’t – I – could I have some water?” She shrugs.

"It’s your room, forecitizen.” _Not while you’re here it isn’t._ I can’t tell if she’s mocking me or not, but whatever freedom she’s giving me, I can use. I head for the water jug. “If you have some ginger, that can help.” I pause for a moment, trying to figure out if this is a trick. But if she needs me to eat ginger for something, I’m not going to be able to stop her whichever way. She watches me fetch the ginger and a cup, pour the water into it. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I was riled up, hit you way harder than I should have. It’ll wear off in a bit. You should sit down in the meanwhile though.” Carefully, I sit across from her, sipping at the water. She’s right, it does help. I try not to look at her. If she starts doing a spell, I don’t want to have to see it coming when I can’t do anything.

“So what you’re saying is, I wanted something, but I didn’t even know about it because I forgot you existed – and now you want me to tell you what it was?”

“Pretty much. I mean you do know – you’re a smart woman, forecitizen, obviously, as well as aware. You know your own mind. What does it want?” And she’s right again, because if this isn’t some elaborate trick, then yes, I do know.

“You answered my questions.” I’m not even sure why I’m telling her this. It would be easy to say it’s because I’m hoping she won’t kill me if I cooperate, but while my muscles remain tensed, waiting every moment for something that isn’t just words, I know I’m not doing this under threat. Know, from whatever part of me it is that Aye keeps talking about, that I’m welcoming this chance. I’ve been alone with my thoughts for far longer than it takes for them to hammer to get out – and an overpowerful mage-slave, at least, isn’t likely to betray my secrets.

“Your questions about mage-slaves?” I nod.

“Yes. That isn’t something you can ask about here, even if you are a forecitizen. And-“ I pause, take another swallow of ginger water. If my head can be any clearer, this is where I need it. “Everyone says mages are demons. Want to enslave us all, like the law says. My cousin has been telling me for years that I have too much heart for mages, act too much like they’re people.” Like you’re people, maybe I should say, but I can’t do that and keep talking. “I’ve always thought she was right, but lately I’ve maybe been thinking it’s the opposite. That people are people – even the ones who enslave. And you-“.

“I’m a person?” she asks like there’s something funny about it. “Or am I a demon who wants to enslave you?” I swallow.

“I don’t think you’re a demon.” Neither of us says anything for a few moments. Then she swings her legs over the bench, half stretching out across it.

“Well, that works for me. Ask away, forecitizen Genea.” I take a larger swallow of water than I meant to and half choke, coughing to get my throat clear again.

“I – I don’t-“

“You said you want to know a person. Here I am. You said you want to ask me questions. Go ahead.”

“Am I going to forget it afterwards?”

“No.” I swallow again, the taste of ginger sharp on my tongue.

“Are you going to kill me?” She starts, like this surprises her.

“No, of course not.” She looks around the room, lingering on the sword I didn’t try to grab. “Is that what you thought I was here for?” Do I have to explain this to her now, of all things?

“I’m a forecitizen of the guard. I stood by while you were tortured. You broke into my house.”

“Well, do you think I should have walked up to you at market? Or asked your landlady – ‘excuse me, is forecitizen Genea here, there’s a mage-slave that snuck out at night and wants to talk to her’.” I have no idea what to say to that.

“What do you want, then?” She steeples her hands and grins.

“Exactly what I’m doing right now – I want to talk to you.” And I can’t do this anymore. Not sip the ginger water which I realize I’ve drunk up entirely, not sit at my own table and try to figure out a mage who snuck out of a compound that’s supposed to be impregnable to them, to talk to me and not to kill me. Maybe I’m in a dream, I think desperately. Maybe this is actually a vision, and the vision spirit has taken her form. You’re supposed to do what they want, then – even when it doesn’t make sense. I put the cup back on the table.

“What kinds of questions can I ask?” She makes an odd twisted gesture, and water arcs from the water jug into the cup. I jump so hard I knock against the table and nearly spill it, but she just puts her hands down again.

“Whatever you want. What do I think of ginger water? Is it more fun to be dropped in salt water or beaten with a lash? What color hair do I like the best? Really, I’m an open book.” She’s not a vision. Visions don’t joke like that. _People_ don’t joke like that, if they’re sane, and if I have to think about being two feet away from a possibly insane mage, I might just fall on my own knife. The only thing that I can do is take this at face value, and hope it ends before it drives me out of my own mind. Questions. I know I had questions.

I’m still trying not to look at her hands, but I can bear the rest of her. There’s a tear in her tunic, just under her shoulder, and a memory that I never forgot at all rises in my mind - a man dragged through a hallway with a bloody back. I pick up the cup again, trying not to let my hands shake. Well, that’s a question.

“What’s the Count of the Day?” It shouldn’t have surprised me that she grins again.

"That would be the ‘beaten with a lash’ part. Though I mean, really it should probably be called the Count of the Night. It’s what they do when they have us all locked up in the compound again after work. They pick one of us – usually at random, unless they think some group wasn’t working very well, and then it’s one of them. And, they’re the Count – they have a post for it and everything. Right in the middle, where everyone can see. Same one they use for punishment, but that’s after the Count, if it’s happening.” I manage to set down the cup again, instead of dropping it.

“Every day?”

“Yep.”

“How – how many?”

“Standard’s five. If they’re pissed for some reason, it can go up to twelve.” I flinch at that, but don’t think she notices. “If they’re really pissed, they get nastier with the whips they pick.”

“Have you – have you ever-?” I wouldn’t ask, except she said I could, and now I don’t think I can sit with her and not know.

“I’ve been the Count of the Day for two weeks straight now.” She says it gleefully, like it’s a joke and an achievement all in one. Finally, I reach the limit beyond which I can’t say anything at all. Just sit there, and contemplate trying to choke on the water again. The ring of the bell-tower interrupts where I can’t. “All stars, is it that time already?” Aye jumps to her feet, stretching out and looking toward the window. “I’m sorry forecitizen. Much as I am enjoying this, I do have work tomorrow. And Counting.” She flashes a smile. “I’ll be back after.” And before I can do anything, or even decide what I might do – stand up? scream? ask her not to come back? – she opens one of the window shutters enough to slip through, and is gone, taking the light with her.

I sit in the darkness at my own table until the clock strikes again, and when I walk to my bed I fall asleep over the blanket and in my uniform.


	5. Chapter Recaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [In which I play Golden Rule with cognitive accessibility]

_This page has short recap-type summaries of the first three chapters of this story. As such, if you don't like spoiler type things, you would probably want to not read this._

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1: The narrator, forecitizen Genea, briefly discusses mage-slaves, and goes to their compound to request that the next day one be sent to reinforce the wall she commands.

Chapter 2: The next day, a mage-slave and a Helani (her guard) arrive at the wall where Genea is. It is discovered that there is more damage than was thought. They go along the wall, with the mage-slave checking and reinforcing it. Throughout, Genea is witness to the Helani and the wall guards assaulting the mage-slave. Due to the greater damage, the mage-slave is exhausted and has to stop early, so Genea has to head back to the compound.

Chapter 3: At the compound, Genea is escorted to another mage-slave, who is there due to being punished. To Genea's shock/confusion, the mage-slave is very self-assertive and makes sardonic-type comments, and Genea seems to be the only one who notices this. The mage-slave, realizing Genea is noticing this, puts her in a trance-type state and induces her to forget this happened and to ignore/not notice such things in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work come from the world of the game Dragon Age (which I have not played).
>
>> The Qunari call their own mages "saarebas", which means "a dangerous thing" in Qunlat.  
>  _-Dragon Age Wiki_  
> 
> 
> This work originally came out of a person I know (who does play Dragon Age) telling me about about Qunari mages. Aside from the enslaved mages element, it doesn't particularly resemble it, but since my only title for this so far has been "Mage Slaves", and I happened to remember that bit of worldbuilding (which I learned later) and felt it was appropriate for a few reasons, I decided to use the reference.


End file.
